What do you know about your group? What have you learned about your group that you didn't know when this all started several weeks. I think their capacity to work is the biggest thing. Like our staff has been impressed with in terms of the amount that we've gotten in since April twentieth with this group. You know there it's an extremely thirsty group in terms of they always wants something more, they want something new. You'll see them today. A lot of people kind of mail in this last day.
These guys are fired up on getting out there one more time. We got a lot of situational work we've got to get done today. But I think that's the biggest thing. Just really their capacity to work was really impressive with them individual or positional things that have been resolved or it's not resolved now. I mean just because of the nature of what we do. There are no paths, there are no quarterbacks can't be touched. You know, you're really not allowed to play press man and get up
and get physical with them. You can kind of mirror them and chadow them. So there's a lot of cooperation that has to go on in the offseason program. So to come to any real conclusions, at this point in time. Is it really wouldn't be fair to anybody to say, Hey, this guy's done an unbelieable job. I mean, you really were still gotta put pads on. We're still gonna be physical, we still gotta you know, see what that's all about.
So if you acknowledge that, you've acknowledge that you're negotiations with the contract, IF's something we're to get done before camp, wouldn't that essentially eliminate a true quarter beck competition. Your best players are always going to play, So I mean, I think that's always been the way it has to be, and that's the way it will be. Some deal that give me one more time. My theory is the best players always play, and it's not fair to the rest of the guys on the team if the best players
aren't playing. It's not fair to the city, it's not fair to the staff, it's not fair to anybody if the best players aren't playing. And the best players are always going to play, then between now and in the second of all, what's your message. It's the same message we always have with them. I mean that it's a great group. We trust them. They've got their individual workouts that they'll be accountable for when they come back, and just you know, enjoy your time off. You deserve your
time off. They've worked extremely Hearts and Table twentieth and looking forward to getting you guys back here. On the first didn't categorize how mort Destance has has looked throughout the whole camps, especially compared to what are you able to do on the fly last year. He's just so
much more comfortable in terms of what we're doing. When you know, last year he was coming off an injury, coming out from miss in a year, probably still wasn't one hundred percent when we were with him last year at this point in time, learning a new offense on the fly, as you said, So it's just a there's a whole different comfort level when you see Mark out there. Now, how is that in actually his performance in the campus it's obviously he's just sharper just because of his knowledge.
He knows where number two, number three, number four are, the understands protections better. It's not the first time, you know, it's the game of football is a huge game of repetition, and you can't manufacture those repetitions unless you're out on the field. Actually doing them. So you know, he's got that whole year in the bank, so to speak. So what's the next step for sam Red for his prepares for treating the game. Plom just continue to work on
his rehabilitation. As I said before, there's medical rehab, performance rehab, and then prepared to play. He's in the performance rehab aspect. Now he's got six weeks before we get back here in August, and then uh, then it's prepared to play in and get out there and wing the ball around. Now everybody's running around today. I don't say we don't have any contact with him. He's gonna work on his with our trainers and strength coaches. I think he can
work on his real rotation. But from a football standpoint, there's no contact. What second he's had, I think he's been great progress. And the biggest thing with Josh is just consistency, and I think it is for most guys, you know, when you come in as a first year player.
He was obviously set back a little bit because of his injury, uh and then missing the first portion of the season, but then just flashed at times, you know, as a kickoff return for a touchdown was that which was a heck of a return, you know, just a more consistent basis in terms of his performance out there.
And I think he's really been a lot more consistent, and that's what we've been trying to work on him with him a lot about Miles Austin and his ability to venture the younger receivers, But what about as a receiver? What have you seen from them out here? He been really impressed with him. He's an outstanding route runner, does a great job of getting separation at the top of
his routes, understands leverage, understands coverage. You know. I think that wealth of experience that he has, he's a big target. He's got really really good range, catches the ball, extremely well intelligent, you know, kind of knows the subtleties of the of exact route running, you know, kind of exactly where to maybe place his elbow to get separation in terms of pushing off a hip and things like that.
But and he's imparted that on the younger guys, which I think has really helped us, you know that to have that true veteran route runner in there, and I think he's been really good at doing that. GJ. Canty making the rugs issue. He's actually done a really nice job. The one thing with GJ that you didn't know because he's coming from quarterback. You know, he's obviously a running, slash, snowing quarterback coming out of college, so you knew that
kind of athleticism. But I think the one thing if you ask any of the coaches or even the players, is how well he actually catches the ball, which he would never know if a quarter I can do in that transition because it's you know, they're not making any attempts. But he's got real natural hands. He's a he's a hands catcher. He plucks the ball. He's always catching the
ball away from his body. He made an outstanding catch I think to finish training yesterday, you know, down the sideline on a back shoulder throw that he opened up and caught. So um for him, it's just getting familiar with everything. I think he's always seen it through the eyes of a quarterback, but now he's seen it through the eyes of receivers. So he could tell you what everybody was running on a route, But now how do
you run the route? And what are the little subtleties as I talked about with Miles of getting that route run so you can create separation to give yourself an opportunity to catch it. But um, I think he's done a really nice shot. But it'll be really interesting to see what happens with him in August. Because the other thing, we've used him a couple of days here at running back. He's got some versatility. He's got, you know, playing a
couple of different spots and special teams. So you know, we'll see how that versatility fits in terms of we're getting towards the fifty three. So when you signed late last year, he came late later, you thought of enough of him to sign him off the Lion's practice squad. What kind of progresses he made? What have you seen from him? Can he compete? To start? He can compete. Um,
he's big, he's physical. You know, he looks like a safety. Um. You know, we were impressed with him in terms of watching him on tape at Detroit, so that we felt when we had the opportunity, let's see if we can go get him and bring him in here and develop. And I know Corey and Billy are really excited about
him on the defensive side. But a smart kid, you know, it's William and Mary grad so real intelligent football player to go along with that physical skill set and now it's um, it's just applying it kind of like I said earlier with Josh on a more consistent basis, but he's got a legitimate child. So podcast this morning that we would see a different positions this uncoming season. Does that mean in different positions? Yeah? Is that similar to any where you're going to kind of move around to
get a more player? No, I mean it's the same thing we did with Trent and that we do with our outside linebackers because they're playing outside linebacker and based defense. But then when we go to Nickel, we're not in a three four spacing or in a four down spacing. So moving Connor and Brandon around as part of what
we've we've kind of always done. He'll be in a similar role that Connor for us, you know, in two really kind of interchangeable parts in terms of looking at how we're playing our outside linebackers right now, training camp, you have some time here, who would you say your biggest strength and your biggest weakness is going in a camp and comes six weeks, our biggest strength is that we have six weeks before training camp, and our biggest weakness is that we have six weeks before training camp,
so I mean offseason program. We don't put a lot of stock in terms of making real solid evaluations in terms of where they are. It's about them working, getting better, getting smarter, understanding schemes and all those other things. But really trying to figure out your strengths and weaknesses come when we actually put the pads on, because to make those assessments now is it's really not fair. You know, I mean our our d lines taking two steps and
pulling off. You know, you really can't see pass rush moves because we're not allowed to do that in this this phase of the game. So we're not We don't look at it from that standpoint where we come out of this and sit down as a coaching staff this afternoon, Hey, what are our strengths? What our weaknesses? It's just, you know, how did each group improve based upon the rules that the CBA gives us in terms of getting these guys
better from April twentieth until today. So spoken to John Harball yet about how the inner squad Morton and Libby are calling just a case anybody to preserve with this one. We need Morten libbya as an emergency phone call, Okay, I just didn't know if it was. I mean, if it's an emergency, we could take it. So if it was,
you could ask. Have I spoken to John? Yeah, We've gone back and forth, traded emails, talked to him with three or four times on the phone, just kind of putting the final pieces together in terms of what we're gonna do when last year, what sub stood out with the way Byron Maxwell played against you guys specifically, one was a versatility. He started at outside corner, but then when they went to Nickeolie came inside. So you watched him cover Mac and Coope and then move inside and
cover Jordan. You know, I think that was the biggest thing. And then you know, really when you see him in person, not evaluating one film, it's just how big and tall and long he is and what a disruptive force he was, especially when he was playing those guys in press Man. So it had a really good game against us UM. I think if you asked Jordan, I think Jordan said he thought it was the best cover guy that he faced last year as a rookie. So uh you know,
that's that stood out to us. I thought he was the best uh Nickel defender that defended us in the sixteen games that we played. Everybody gets a little bit of a breakcare just because I mean we've been at it since last August basically straight through really not a
lot of downtime from that. So everybody kind of reacharger battery, spent some time in their families, and then we'll get ready to go to talk about Zach Ertz's offseason everything he's doing it yet on the field more, have you seen anything from Brent as far as being more driven knowing that Zach is kind of pushing here. I think I've seen that that drive from Brent since we got here. You know, I'm not sure there is a harder worker in this organization than Brent. That's a testament to Brent
in terms of what he does. And I think the two of them compliment each other. I think they both bring out the best in each other. I think u because Brent worked so hard, I think Zach has learned a lot from Brent. Brent has always been a great mentor and really tried to help him. And I think obviously Zack's ability has pushed Brent, so I think the
two of them really compliment each other really well. You know, James Franklin was just in town and I asked him a story about Jordan Matthews, you know, because of coaching honesty Vannonville, and he said, the biggest adjustment Jordan told him he had to make was when he was a rookie, he would catch a ball and run it eighty yards and obviously you're not You're looking for fast, fast, fast. You had a conversation with him, He said, what was
that conversation like? And what football? The play ends on a whistle, so when the whistle blows, stopped running, so that was a conversation. Thanks,